When it comes to community-owned and operated networks, better, faster, cheaper broadband is often only one of the benefits. Some telephone cooperatives, like Paul Bunyan Communications in Northern Minnesota’s Beltrami County, share profits with its members, literally paying the benefits of shared telecom ownership back into the communities they serve.

The Cooperative recently announced it was giving a $3.6 million profit windfall back to local community members. It’s the fourth such payout to local subscribers in the last seven years.

For distributions of $150 or less, a credit was applied to subscriber’s bills. For sums greater than $150, the cooperative mailed checks out to locals.

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With origins that owe a part of its success to the Beltrami Electric Cooperative, it was in 1996 when locals were first offered broadband access through Paul Bunyan Telephone. Three years later, it began the necessary infrastructure upgrades that allowed it to offer phone, high-speed Internet access, and digital television.

In 2005, the cooperative expanded with fiber technology for the first time. In 2010, Paul Bunyan Telephone changed its name to Paul Bunyan Communications. 

“Our cooperative continues to grow and thrive, now serving over 35,000 active members across over a 6,000-square-mile service area,” said Paul Bunyan Communications CEO Chad Bullock.

“Through steady investment and expansion, we’ve built one of the nation’s largest rural all-fiber [networks], transforming how our members live, work, and play. It’s incredibly rewarding to see that success come full circle as we share the benefits with our members.”

On September 10th, in New Prague, the Minnesota Public Broadband Alliance (MPBA) will be hosting an in-person event with speakers aimed at community leaders and residents working to expand Internet access to unserved and underserved homes.

At the moment, featured speakers include:

• Gigi Sohn (American Association for Public Broadband)
• Christopher Mitchell (Director, Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self-Reliance)
• Bree Maki (Director, Minnesota Office of Broadband Development)

On the docket for conversation and questions includes where cities, providers, nonprofits, and other entities fit into the current landscape with respect to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Act (BEAD), other funding opportunities, and a host of other topics aimed at expanding access to infrastructure.

The MPBA is a coalition of towns, cities, and counties in Minnesota working to drive smart public investment towards broadband infrastructure.

The in-person event is free, but registration is required. Register here.

The mystery of who and what killed the California Affordable Home Internet Act is coming into view.

As a California lawmaker hinted when the bill was abruptly withdrawn in June, the evidence seems to be pointing to the new leadership now directing the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) – the agency administering the $42.5 billion federal BEAD program to expand Internet access.

In a recently released FAQ published by the NTIA this week, a corroborating clue has emerged.

And what may be the smoking gun is a bullet buried on page 48, under section 3.29, after the question: "May an Eligible Entity (states) require a specific rate for the low-cost service option (LCSO) when required by state law?”

NTIA's answer:

“No. The IIJA prohibits NTIA or the Assistant Secretary from engaging in rate regulation. Because the Assistant Secretary must approve the LCSO in the Final Proposal, the rate contained may not be the result of rate regulation. The RPN (Restructuring Policy Notice) addressed this fundamental flaw in the BEAD NOFO. The RPN eliminated BEAD NOFO requirements dictating price and other terms for the required low-cost service option.”

“Per the RPN, states may not apply state laws to reimpose LCSO requirements removed by the RPN. More specifically, the RPN ‘prohibits Eligible Entities from explicitly or implicitly setting the LCSO rate a subgrantee must offer’ (BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice, p.7). Violation would result in rejection of the Final (BEAD) Proposal (emphasis added).”

Last week, a California Assemblymember who had sponsored legislation for a broadband affordability law abruptly withdrew the legislation. 

But what really killed the broadband affordability bill in California? Was it opposition to the proposed legislation from within the state or pressure from the Trump administration?

The Bill Was Advancing Until…

Modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), the California Affordable Home Internet Act was first introduced in January. It aimed to require Internet service providers that operate in the Golden State to offer a $15 per month broadband service plan for income-eligible households.

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The proposed legislation was introduced as AB 353 by Assemblymember Tasha Boerner and was initially supported by the California Alliance for Digital Equity (CADE).

Over the intervening months, CADE and proponents of the bill offered resources and recommendations on how the bill could be made more effective than the ABA, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that advocates were seeing with the rollout and implementation of New York’s law.

On June 4, the California bill advanced through the state Assembly and moved on to the state senate by a 52-17 margin.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of a popular broadband grant program has been greeted with disgust and anger by those doing the heavy lifting to bridge the country’s digital divide, leaving many states' planned broadband expansions in limbo, and affordable broadband advocates contemplating potential legal action.  

The unprecedented choice to destroy digital skills training and broadband adoption programs created by an act of Congress is seeing escalating pushback by a growing coalition of frustrated lawmakers and state broadband offices.

Last week, President Trump announced via a Truth Social post that he was ending the Digital Equity Act, falsely claiming that the program was “unconstitutional” and “racist.”

“No more woke handouts based on race!” the President said. “The Digital Equity Program is a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway. I am ending this IMMEDIATELY, and saving Taxpayers BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!"

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But the popular program was perfectly legal, barely focused on race, and was proving to be of broad benefit to countless Americans – including many of the President’s own supporters in long-neglected rural counties.

The $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act was passed by Congress as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill. It mandated the creation of three different grant programs intended to shore up equitable, widespread access to affordable Internet, while providing the tools and digital literacy education needed to help neglected U.S. communities get online.

A legal challenge to the Trump administration’s unilateral decision to kill a law passed by Congress seems all but certain.

The city of Willmar, Minnesota (est. pop. 21,000), has voted to move forward on plans for a city-owned open access fiber network. The $24.5 million investment, which saw finalized approval by the Willmar city council earlier this month with a 4-3 vote, aims to drive accountable, affordable, fiber access to long underserved parts of the city about 100 miles west of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

In its 4-3 vote in early March, the City Council opted to continue work on the Connect Wilmar Initiative, something it says is an answer to the ongoing failures by regional incumbent telecom monopolies to provide uniform, high quality, high speed, affordable Internet access.

“Local internet providers were not interested in improving Willmar's internet infrastructure,” the city says. “After soliciting proposals, the city chose to partner with Hometown Fiber, aligning with Willmar’s long-term vision to provide fast, reliable internet through an open-access fiber network.”

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The decision to move forward on the network comes after several years of careful planning, starting with the creation of a city broadband committee in September of 2022, and a mapping of local broadband access (or lack thereof) completed in December of 2022.

Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.

Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical gigabit (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.

The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.

CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.

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“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said.  “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”

States are poised to receive $42.5 billion in new Broadband, Equity, Access, And Deployment (BEAD) subsidies in the new year thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill. But a growing number of ISPs in states like Minnesota say they may not participate in this latest round of federal grants, citing bureaucracy and burdensome restrictions.

While American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants came with significant leeway as to how grant money could be spent, BEAD grants, overseen by the National Telecommunications And Information Administration (NTIA), come with numerous requirements related to lien mandates, low-cost service obligations, and deployment technology.

Those restrictions serve a purpose in the wake of the boondoggle that was the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which resulted in a massive number of defaulting bids and unfinished projects because companies bidding on projects lacked the competency or financing to finish their awarded projects. It’s a major reason the NTIA was put in charge of BEAD.

But many Minnesota ISPs are still bristling at BEAD’s requirements, according to Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance, an organization that represents 70 ISPs across the North Star State.

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“My members are telling me they’re not going to participate,” Christensen recently told MinnPost when asked about the $42.45 billion broadband program. “The way that BEAD is structured. I don’t know how anybody’s going to participate.”